Oration
38 of our Holy Father Gregory Nazianzen
on the Manifestation of God in the Birth of the Anointed.

Christ is born, glorify
him!
Christ from heaven, go out to meet him!
Christ on earth, be exalted!
Sing to the Lord all the whole earth, and that I may
join both in one word, let the heavens rejoice, and
let the earth be glad, for him who is of heaven and
then of earth.
Christ in the flesh, rejoice with trembling and with
joy; with trembling because of your sins, with joy because
of your hope.
Christ of a Virgin; matrons live as virgins, that you
may be mothers of Christ. Who does not worship Him who
is from the beginning?
Who does not glorify Him who is the last?
Once again the darkness is past;
once again light is made;
once again Egypt is punished with darkness;
once again Israel is enlightened by a pillar.
The people that sat in the darkness of ignorance, let
it see the great light of full knowledge.
Old things have passed away: behold all things have
become new.
The letter gives way: the Spirit comes to the fore.
The shadows flee away:, the truth comes in upon them.
Melchizedech is perfected.
He that was without mother comes into existence without
a father (without mother in His earlier state, without
father in His later).
The laws of nature are overturned: the world above must
be filled.
Christ commands it: let us not set ourselves against
Him.
Clap your hands all you people, for to us a child is
born, and to us a son is given, whose government is
upon his shoulder (for with the Cross it is raised up),
and his name is 'the Angel of the Father's Great Counsel'.
Let John cry, 'Prepare the way of the Lord!' I too will
cry the power of this day!
He who is fleshless becomes flesh, the Son of God becomes
the son of man, Jesus Christ the Same yesterday, and
to-day, and for ever.

Let
the Jews be offended, let the Greeks deride, let heretics
talk till their tongues ache. They shall believe then,
when they see Him ascending up into heaven, and if not
then, when they see Him coming out of heaven and sitting
as Judge.
We shall speak of these matters on a future occasion;
for the present the festival is the Manifestation of
God or the Nativity, for it is called both, two titles
being given to the one thing. For God was manifested
to humankind by birth. On the one hand being, and eternally
being, of the eternal being, above cause and word, for
there was no word before the Word, and on the other
hand for our sakes also becoming, that He who gives
us our being might also give us our well-being, or rather
might restore us by His incarnation when we had by wickedness
fallen from well-being. The name Theophany is given
to it in reference to the manifestation, and that of
Nativity in respect of His birth.
This is our present festival; it is this we celebrate
to-day, the coming of God to humanity, that we might
go forth, or rather (for this is the more proper expression)
that we might go back to God, that putting off the old
man, we might put on the new, and that as we died in
Adam, so we might live in Christ, being born with Christ
and crucified with Him and buried with Him and rising
with Him. For I must undergo the beautiful conversion,
and as the painful succeeded the more blissful, so must
the more blissful come out of the painful. For where
sin abounded Grace did much more abound; and if a taste
condemned us, how much more does the Passion of Christ
justify us? Therefore let us keep the Feast, not after
the manner of a heathen festival, but after a godly
sort; not after the way of the world, but in a fashion
above the world; not as our own but as belonging to
Him who is ours, or rather as our Master's; not as of
weakness, but as of healing; not as of creation, but
of re-creation.
And how shall this be? Let us not decorate our porches,
nor organise dances, nor adorn the streets; let us not
feast the eye, nor enchant the ear with music, nor enervate
the nostrils with perfume, nor prostitute the taste,
nor indulge the touch, those roads that are so prone
to evil and entrances for sin; let us not be effeminate
in soft, flowing clothes, whose beauty consists in their
uselessness, nor with the glittering of gems or the
sheen of gold or the tricks of colour, belying the beauty
of nature and invented to do despite to the image of
God; not in rioting and drunkenness, with which are
mingled, I know well, bed-games [I guess this is what
'chambering' means! D.] and wantonness, since the lessons
which evil teachers give are evil, or rather the harvest
from worthless seeds is worthless. Let us not set up
high beds of leaves, making tabernacles for the belly
of what belongs to debauchery. Let us not become critics
of the bouquet of wines, the kickshaws of cooks, the
great cost of unguents. Let not sea and land bring us
as a gift their costly dung, - for this is how I have
learned to estimate luxury, - and let us not strive
to outdo each other in intemperance - to my mind every
superfluity is intemperance and everything which goes
beyond absolute need, - and this while others, who are
made of the same clay and in the same manner, are hungry
and in want.
Let us leave all these to the Greeks and to the pomps
and festivals of the Greeks, who call by the name of
gods beings who rejoice in the reek of sacrifices, and
who consistently worship with their belly, evil inventors
and worshippers of evil demons. But we, the object of
whose adoration is the Word, if we must in some way
have luxury, let us seek it in word, and in the divine
Law, and in histories, especially those that are the
origin of this feast, so that our luxury may be akin
to and not far removed from Him who has called us together.
Or do you desire - for to-day I am your host! - that
I should set before you, my good guests, the story of
these things as abundantly and as nobly as I can, so
that you may know how a foreigner can feed the natives
of the land, and a rustic the people of the town, and
one who cares not for luxury those who delight in it,
and one who is poor and homeless those who are eminent
for wealth?
We will begin from this point; and let me ask you who
delight in such matters to cleanse you mind and your
ears and your thoughts, since our discourse is to be
of God and divine, so that when you depart you may have
enjoyed delights that really do not fade away. And this
same discourse shall be at once both very full and very
concise, so that you may neither be displeased at its
deficiencies, nor find it unpleasant through satiety.
God always was, and always is, and always will be. Or
rather, God always is. For was and will be are fragments
of our time, and of changeable nature, but He is eternal
being. And this is the name that He gives to Himself
when giving the oracle to Moses on the mountain. [In
the LXX text God reveals Himself from the burning bush
as the Existent, ho Wn. D.] For in Himself He sums up
and contains all being, having neither beginning in
the past nor end in the future; like some great sea
of being, limitless and unbounded, transcending all
conception of time and nature, only adumbrated by the
mind, and that very dimly and scantily ... not by His
essentials, but by His environment; one image being
got from one source and another from another, and combined
into some sort of presentation of the truth, which escapes
us before we have caught it, and takes to flight before
we have conceived it, blazing forth upon our master-part,
even when that is cleansed, as the lightning flash which
will not stay its course, does upon our sight, in order,
as I conceive, by that part of It which we can comprehend
to draw us to itself (for that which is altogether incomprehensible
is outside the bounds of hope, and not within the compass
of endeavour), and by that part of It which we cannot
comprehend to move our wonder, and as an object of wonder
to become more an object of desire, and, being desired,
to purify, and by purifying to make us like God, so
that, when we have thus become like Himself, God may,
to use a bold expression, hold converse with us as gods,
being united to us, and that perhaps to the same extent
as He already knows those who are known to Him. The
divine nature, then, is infinite and hard to understand,
and all that we can comprehend of Him is His infinity,
even though one may conceive that because He is of a
simple nature He is therefore either wholly incomprehensible,
or perfectly comprehensible. For let us further enquire
what is implied by "is of a simple nature."
For it is quite certain that this simplicity is not
itself its nature, just as composition is not by itself
the essence of compound beings.
And when Infinity is considered from two points of view,
beginning and end - for that which is beyond these and
not limited by them is Infinity, - when the mind looks
to the depth above, having nowhere to stand, and leans
upon phenomena to form an idea of God, it calls the
infinite and unapproachable which it finds there by
the name of unoriginate. And when it looks into the
depths below, and at the future, it calls Him immortal
and imperishable. And when it draws a conclusion from
the whole it calls Him eternal. For eternity is neither
time nor part of time, for it cannot be measured. But
what time, measured by the course of the sun, is to
us, that eternity is to the everlasting, namely, a sort
of time-like movement and interval co-extensive with
their existence. This, however, is all I must now say
about God, for the present is not a suitable time, as
my present subject is not the doctrine of God, but that
of the Incarnation. But when I say God, I mean Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. For Godhead is neither diffused
beyond these, so as to bring in a mob of gods; nor yet
is it bounded by a smaller compass than these, so as
to condemn us for a poverty-stricken conception of deity,
either Judaizing to save the monarchia, or falling into
paganism by the multitude of our gods. For the evil
on either side is the same, though found in contrary
directions. This then is the holy of holies, hidden
even from the seraphim, and glorified with a thrice
repeated 'holy', meeting in one ascription of the title
'Lord and God', as one of our predecessors has most
beautifully and loftily pointed out.
But since this movement of self-contemplation alone
could not satisfy Goodness, but good must be poured
out and go forth beyond itself to multiply the objects
of its beneficence, for this was essential to the highest
goodness, He first conceived the heavenly and angelic
powers. And this conception was a work fulfilled by
His Word, and perfected by His Spirit. And so the secondary
splendours came into being, as the ministers of the
primary Splendour, whether we are to conceive of them
as intelligent spirits, or as fire of an immaterial
and incorruptible kind, or as some other nature approaching
this as near as may be. I should like to say that they
were incapable of movement in the direction of evil,
and susceptible only of the movement of good, as being
about God, and illumined with the first rays from God
- for earthly beings have but the second illumination,
- but I am obliged to stop short of saying that, and
to conceive and speak of them only as difficult to move
because of him, who for his splendour was called Lucifer,
but became and is called Darkness through his pride,
and the apostate hosts who are subject to him, creators
of evil by their revolt against good, and our tempters.
Thus, then, and for these reasons, He gave being to
the world of thought, as far as I can reason upon these
matters, and estimate great things in my own poor language.
Then when His first creation was in good order, He conceives
a second world, material and visible; and this a system
and compound of earth and sky, and all that is in the
midst of them - an admirable creation indeed, when we
look at the fair form of every part, but yet more worthy
of admiration when we consider the harmony and the unison
of the whole, and how each part fits in with every other,
in fair order, and all with the whole, tending to the
perfect completion of the world as a unit. This was
to show that He could call into being not only a Nature
akin to Himself, but also one altogether alien to Himself.
For akin to deity are those natures which are intellectual,
and only to be comprehended by mind, but all of which
sense can take cognisance are utterly alien to it, and
of these the furthest removed are all those which are
entirely destitute of soul and of power of motion. But
perhaps some one of those who are too festive and impetuous
may say, 'What has all this to do with us? Spur your
horse to the goal. Talk to us about the Festival, and
the reasons for our being here to-day!' Yes, this is
what I am about to do, although I have begun at a somewhat
previous point, being compelled to do so by love, and
by the needs of my argument.
Mind, then, and sense, thus distinguished from each
other, had remained within their own boundaries, and
bore in themselves the magnificence of the Creator-Word,
silent praisers and thrilling heralds of His mighty
work. Not yet was there any mingling of both, nor any
mixtures of these opposites, tokens of a greater Wisdom
and Generosity in the creation of natures; nor as yet
were the whole riches of Goodness made known. Now the
Creator-Word, determining to exhibit this, and to produce
a single living being out of both - the visible and
the invisible creations, I mean - fashions the human
being, and taking a body from already existing matter,
and placing in it a breath taken from Himself which
the Word knew to be an intelligent soul and the image
of God, as a sort of second world. He placed him, great
in littleness on the earth, a new Angel, a mingled worshipper,
fully initiated into the visible creation, but only
partially into the intellectual, king of all upon earth,
but subject to the King above, earthly and heavenly,
temporal and yet immortal, visible and yet intellectual,
half-way between greatness and lowliness, in one person
combining spirit and flesh, spirit because of the favour
bestowed on him, flesh because of the height to which
he had been raised, the one that he might continue to
live and praise his Benefactor, the other that he might
suffer, and by suffering be put in remembrance and corrected
if he became proud of his greatness. A living creature
trained here, and then moved elsewhere, and, to complete
the mystery, deified by its inclination to God. For
to this, I think, tends that light of truth which we
here possess but in measure, that we should both see
and experience the splendour of God, which is worthy
of Him Who made us, and will remake us again after a
loftier fashion.
This being He placed in Paradise, - whatever the Paradise
may have been, - having honoured him with the gift of
free will in order that God might belong to him as the
result of his choice, no less than to Him who had implanted
the seeds of it, to till the immortal plants, by which
is meant perhaps the divine ideas, both the simpler
and the more perfect, naked in his simplicity and non-artificial
life, and without any covering or screen; for it was
fitting that he who was from the beginning should be
such. Also He gave him a Law, as a material for his
free will to act upon. This Law was a commandment as
to what plants he might partake of, and which one he
might not touch. This latter was the Tree of Knowledge,
not, however, because it was evil from the beginning
when planted, nor was it forbidden because God grudged
it to us - let not the enemies of God wag their tongues
in that direction, or imitate the Serpent - but it would
have been good if partaken of at the proper time, for
the tree was, according to my theory, contemplation,
upon which it is only safe for those who have reached
maturity of habit to enter, but which is not good for
those who are still somewhat simple and greedy in their
habit, just as solid food is not good for those who
are yet tender, and have need of milk.
But when through the Devil's malice and the woman's
caprice, to which she succumbed as the more tender,
and which she brought to bear upon the man, as she was
the more apt to persuade, alas for my weakness! - for
that of my first father was mine, - he forgot the Commandment
which had been given to him; he yielded to the baleful
fruit, and for his sin he was banished at once from
the Tree of Life and from Paradise and from God. And
put on the coats of skins, that is, perhaps, the coarser
flesh, both mortal and contradictory. This was the first
thing that he learnt - his own shame; and he hid himself
from God. Yet here too he makes a gain, namely death,
and the cutting off of sin, in order that evil may not
be immortal. Thus his punishment is changed into a mercy;
for it is in mercy, I am persuaded, that God inflicts
punishment.
And having been first chastened by many means (because
his sins were many, whose root of evil sprang up through
divers causes and at sundry tithes), by word, by Law,
by prophets, by benefits, by threats, by plagues, by
waters, by fires, by wars, by victories, by defeats,
by signs in heaven and signs in the air and in the earth
and in the sea, by unexpected changes of men, of cities,
of nations, the object of which was the destruction
of wickedness, at last he needed a stronger remedy for
his diseases were growing worse; mutual slaughters,
adulteries, perjuries, unnatural crimes, and that first
and last of all evils, idolatry and the transfer of
worship from the Creator to created things. As these
required a greater aid, so also they obtained a greater,
which was that the Word of God Himself, who is before
all worlds, the Invisible, the Incomprehensible, the
Bodiless, Beginning of Beginning, the Light of Light,
the Source of Life and Immortality, the Image of the
Archetypal Beauty, the immovable Seal, the unchangeable
Image, the Father's Definition and Word, came to His
own Image, and took on Him flesh for the sake of our
flesh, and mingled Himself with an intelligent soul
for my soul's sake, purifying like by like; and in all
points except sin became human. Conceived by the Virgin,
who first in body and soul was purified by the Holy
Ghost - for it was needful both that childbearing should
be honoured, and that virginity should receive a higher
honour, He came forth then as God with that which He
had assumed, One person in two natures, flesh and Spirit,
of which the latter deified the former.
O new commingling;
O strange conjunction;
the Self-Existent comes into being,
the Uncreate is created,
the Uncontainable is contained,
by the intervention of an intellectual soul,
mediating between the Deity and the corporeity of the
flesh.
And He Who gives riches becomes poor,
for He assumes the poverty of my flesh,
that I may assume the richness of His Godhead.
He that is full empties Himself,
for He empties Himself of His glory for a short while,
that I may have a share in His fullness.
What is the riches of His goodness?
What is this mystery that is around me?
I had a share in the image; I did not keep it;
He partakes of my flesh that He may both save the image
and make the flesh immortal.
He communicates a second Communion far more marvellous
than the first, inasmuch as then He imparted the better
Nature, whereas now Himself partakes of the worse. This
is more godlike than the former action, this is loftier
in the eyes of all men of understanding.
To this what have those cavillers to say, those bitter
reasoners about godhead, those detractors of all that
is praiseworthy, those darkeners of light, uncultured
in respect of wisdom, for whom Christ died in vain,
those unthankful creatures, the work of the Evil One?
Do you turn this benefit into a reproach to God? Will
you deem Him little on this account, that He humbled
Himself for you? Because the Good Shepherd, He who lays
down His life for His sheep, came to seek for that which
had strayed upon the mountains and the hills, on which
you were then sacrificing, and found the wanderer; and
having found it, took it upon His shoulders - on which
He also took the wood of the Cross; and having taken
it, brought it back to the higher life, and having carried
it back, numbered it amongst those who had never strayed?
Because He lighted a candle - His own flesh - and swept
the house, cleansing the world from sin, and sought
the piece of money, the royal image that was covered
up by passions - and calls together His angel friends
on the finding of the coin, and makes them sharers in
His joy, whom He had made to share also the secret of
the Incarnation? Because on the candle of the Forerunner
there follows the light that exceeds in brightness,
and to the voice the Word succeeds; and to the Bridegroom's
friend the Bridegroom, to him that prepared for the
Lord a peculiar people, cleansing them by water in preparation
for the Spirit? Do you reproach God with all this? Do
you on this account deem Him lessened, because He girds
Himself with a towel and washes His disciples' feet,
and shows that humiliation is the best road to exaltation?
Because for the soul that was bent to the ground He
humbles Himself, that He may raise up with Himself the
soul that was tottering to a fall under a weight of
sin? Why not also charge Him with a crime because He
eats with tax-gatherers and at the taxgatherers' tables,
and that He makes disciples of tax-gatherers, that He
too may gain something - and what? - the salvation of
sinners. If so, we must blame the physician for stooping
over sufferings, and enduring evil odours so that he
may give health to the sick; or one who as the Law commands
bent down into a ditch to save a beast that had fallen
into it!
He was sent, but as man, for He was of a twofold Nature;
for He was wearied, and was hungry, and was thirsty,
and was in an agony, and shed tears, according to the
nature of a bodily being. And if the expression be also
used of Him as God, the meaning is that the Father's
good pleasure is to be considered a Mission, for to
this He refers all that concerns Himself; both that
He may honour the eternal Principle, and because He
will not be taken to be an antagonistic God. And whereas
it is written both that He was betrayed, and also that
He gave Himself up and that He was raised up by the
Father, and taken up into heaven; and on the other hand,
that He raised Himself and went up, the former statement
of each pair refers to the good pleasure of the Father,
the latter to His own Power. Are you then to be allowed
to dwell upon all that humiliates Him, while passing
over all that exalts Him, and to count on your side
the fact that He suffered, but to leave out of the account
the fact that it was of His own will? See what even
now the Word has to suffer. By one set He is honoured
as God, but is confused with the Father, by another
He is dishonoured as mere flesh and severed from the
godhead. With which of them will He be most angry, or
rather, which shall He forgive, those who injuriously
confound Him or those who divide Him? For the former
ought to have distinguished, and the latter to have
united Him, the one in number, the other in godhead.
Do you stumble at His flesh? So did the Jews. Or do
you call Him a Samaritan, and - I will not say the rest.
Do you disbelieve in His Godhead? This not even the
demons did, O less believing than demons and more stupid
than Jews. Those did perceive that the term 'son' implies
equality of rank; these did know that He who drove them
out was God, for they were convinced of it by their
own experience. But you will admit neither the equality
nor the godhead. It would have been better for you to
have been either a Jew or a demoniac (if I may utter
an absurdity), than in uncircumcision and in sound health
to be so wicked and ungodly in your attitude of mind.
A little later on you will see Jesus submitting to be
purified in the river Jordan for my purification, or
rather, sanctifying the waters by His purification (for
indeed He had no need of purification, who takes away
the sin of the world) and the heavens cleft asunder,
and witness borne to him by the Spirit that is of one
nature with Him; you shall see Him tempted and conquering
and served by angels, and healing every sickness and
every disease, and giving life to the dead -O that He
would give life to you who are dead because of your
heresy, - and driving out demons, sometimes Himself,
sometimes by his disciples, and feeding vast multitudes
with a few loaves, and walking dry-shod upon seas, and
being betrayed and crucified, and crucifying with Himself
my sin, offered as a lamb, and offering as a priest,
as a man buried in the grave, and as God rising again,
and then ascending, and to come again in His own glory.
Why what a multitude of high festivals there are in
each of the mysteries of the Christ; all of which have
one completion, namely, my perfection and return to
the first condition of Adam.
Now then I pray you accept His conception, and to leap
before Him, if not like John from the womb, yet like
David, because of the resting of the Ark. Revere the
enrolment on account of which you were inscribed in
heaven, and adore the birth by which you were loosed
from the chains of your birth, and honour little Bethlehem,
which has led you back to Paradise; and worship the
manger through which you, being without sense, were
fed by the Word. Know as Isaiah bids you, your Owner
like the ox, and like the ass your Master's crib, if
you are one of those who are pure and lawful food, and
who chew the cud of the word and are fit for sacrifice.
Or if you are one of those who are as yet unclean and
uneatable and unfit for sacrifice, and of the gentile
portion, run with the star, and bear your gifts with
the Magi, gold and frankincense and myrrh, as to a king,
and to God, and to One who has died for you.
With shepherds glorify Him;
with angels join in chorus;
with archangels sing hymns.
Let this Festival be common to the powers in heaven
and to the powers upon earth. For I am persuaded that
the heavenly hosts join in our exultation and keep high
Festival with us to-day, because they love humankind,
and they love God just like those whom David introduces
after the Passion ascending with Christ and coming to
meet Him, and bidding one another to lift up the gates.
One thing connected with the birth of Christ I would
have you hate - the murder of the infants by Herod.
Or rather you must venerate this too, the sacrifice
of the same age as Christ, slain before the offering
of the New Victim. If He flees into Egypt, joyfully
become a companion of His exile. It is a great thing
to share the exile of the persecuted Christ. If He tarry
long in Egypt, call Him out of Egypt by a reverent worship
of Him there. Travel without fault through every stage
and faculty of the Life of Christ. Be purified; be circumcised;
strip off the veil which has covered you from your birth.
After this teach in the Temple, and drive out the sacrilegious
traders. Submit to be stoned if need be, for well I
know you will be hidden from those who cast the stones;
you will escape even through the midst of them, like
God. If thou be brought before Herod, answer not for
the most part. He will respect your silence more than
most people's long speeches. If you are scourged, ask
for what they leave out. Taste gall for the taste's
sake; drink vinegar; seek for spittings; accept blows,
be crowned with thorns, that is, with the hardness of
the godly life; put on the purple robe, take the reed
in hand, and receive mock worship from those who mock
at the truth; lastly, be crucified with Him, and share
His death and burial gladly, so that you may rise with
Him, and be glorified with Him and reign with Him. Look
at and be looked at by the Great God, who in Trinity
is worshipped and glorified, and Whom we declare to
be now set forth as clearly before you as the chains
of our flesh allow, in Jesus Christ our Lord, to Whom
be the glory for ever.
Amen